


The Logic of Dreams

by Frayach



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Related, Exoneration, False Accusations, First Kiss, Lost Love, M/M, Reunions, Rimming, Social Justice, Soul Bond
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 11:34:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6373132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frayach/pseuds/Frayach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>J.K. Rowling meets Philip K. Dick. War hero Harry Potter suddenly finds himself guilty of a murder he hasn’t committed of a man he has never met. And worst of all, he has no means of confronting his accusers, all of whom are former Death Eaters. Could this be a set-up? Or something even worse?  Loosely based on the short story <a>The Minority Report</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Logic of Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This is an old fic that I wrote for a fest that took place right before _Deathly Hallows_ came out. It's a bit rough, but I thought it deserved resurrection anyway.

_I dream of rain  
I dream of gardens in the desert sand  
I wake in pain  
I dream of love as time runs through my hand_

_I dream of fire  
These dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire  
And in the flames  
shadows play in the shape of a man's desire_

_This desert rose  
Each veil, a secret promise  
This desert flower  
No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this_

_And as she turns  
This way she moves in the logic of all my dreams  
This fire burns  
I realize that nothing's as it seems . . ._

Sting – _Desert Rose_

 

 

Ron had just finishing packing his briefcase and was putting on his coat when the voice came over the Interoffice _Sonorus_ Communicator. Even if he hadn’t frozen at the words the voice spoke, the nervousness alone with which they were spoken would’ve had the same paralysing effect.

“Uhm, Ron? Er, I mean Mr. Weasley? Uhm, this is Euan . . . Euan Abercrombie, I mean. Uhm, something just . . . something just happened down here, and, uhm, well, I think you should come have a look.”

Ron glowered at the featureless box on his desk that’d just emitted words he’d never heard before – or even imagined hearing.

“What do you mean ‘something just happened down here’?” he asked. “You need to be a bit more specific than that, Abercrombie. I was on my way out the door, here . . .”

“Uhm . . . well, I’m not sure I can explain over the Communicator, sir,” Euan stammered. “I mean . . . er, that is to say . . .”

Ron sighed and hung his coat back on its hook.

“Whatever this is, it had better be important,” he grumbled. “I’ll be down in a minute.”

He dropped his briefcase on his chair and grabbed his Auror badge from the top drawer of his desk. Despite his dismissive tone, he was rather alarmed. In the nearly four years he had worked for the Magical Law Enforcement’s Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes, first as a Report Inspector like Abercrombie and later in his current capacity as assistant to the Commissioner, he had never once encountered a situation that warranted the use of the words “something just happened down here.” Never. Not once.

As he made his way to the heavily guarded and fortified basement facility, he felt his trepidation increase. Euan was relatively new, but he was not stupid. In fact, Ron was planning to recommend him for a promotion to Supervising Report Inspector at his next annual review. He’d shown remarkable acumen and discretion – two traits that were important for an Auror in any department but were absolutely nonnegotiable for advancement in the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes. Clearly, something had spooked Euan.

For a moment, Ron toyed with the idea of calling his boss, but then he recalled that Commissioner Williamson had already left for the day. Something about a Ministry function his wife was required to attend. Besides, Ron thought, as he stepped off the elevator, Euan had asked for him specifically. If this – whatever it was – turned out to be a mistake on Euan’s part, Ron could see to it that it didn’t turn into a black spot on the bloke’s heretofore unblemished employment record. And if it wasn’t a mistake . . . ? Well, then he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

The Report Generation Wing was a deceptively cheerful place, and as he walked along the corridor past the break room with its snooker table and self-brewing espresso machines, Ron found himself thinking how glad he was that he no longer spent his days down here. Sure, there was a well-appointed break room and a well-stocked magical vending machine. Sure, there was a wireless and a top-quality chess set. And sure, there were comfortable couches where a Report Inspector could take a nap whenever he or she chose, but this was also the place where _they_ lived. That is, if “lived” was even the proper verb for the existence they endured in their underground chamber.

He shuddered. It had been nearly four years that he’d been working in this building, but still he got the creeps every time he thought of the three people who spent their days on the other side of the Report Inspectors’ office wall. Of course, he’d never seen them. No one except their caretaker saw them, and in turn, no one saw their caretaker. No one – except the Commissioner and a half dozen high-ranking Ministry officials – even knew their names. All Ron and his fellow Aurors knew was that three Death Eaters who could predict the future lived in the basement of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement building and were known as Report Generators numbers one, two and three. Their basic needs were met, and they were treated humanely. As far as Ron and most everyone else in the ravaged post-war wizarding world was concerned, that was all one needed to know. Anything more would be superfluous information. Given what had happened to every other convicted Death Eater, these three had been lucky. Some might even say ridiculously so . . .

“Ron!”

He started at the hissed sound and turned to see Euan beckoning to him from the darkened doorway of the women’s loo.

“Bloody hell,” he hissed back, not even sure why he was whispering but nonetheless sure that he should. “What’s going on?”

Euan glanced furtively up and down the corridor and then waved him through the door. Frowning, Ron followed.

“You do realise this is highly irregular,” he said. “I don’t see what could be so important that it calls for a secret meeting in the ladies’ loo . . .”

“No female inspectors on the clock, tonight,” whispered Euan. “This seemed like the safest place.”

Ron’s frown deepened.

“Out with it,” he said. “And this had better be good. I hate coming down here, and you know it.”

But Euan didn’t answer. Instead, he handed Ron a folded piece of parchment the size of a Muggle business card. He recognised it instantly as a Pre-Curse Report Summary. After all, he’d handled countless cards just like this when he was a Report Inspector like Euan. They were the basic summaries that emerged from the Report Generators’ Predictive Pensieve every time the Report Generators had one of their visions. The Pre-Curse Report Summaries were the first heads-up the Report Inspectors had that a violent crime was about to be committed, and they always contained three pieces of information. Three pieces and nothing more.

Feeling strangely and suddenly anxious, Ron unfolded the Report Summary and stared at it. Nearly a minute passed before he could even make sense of what he read.

MURDERER: Harry Potter

VICTIM: Ed Kappington

TIME FRAME: Fourteen Hours.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry was just putting away the groceries he’d picked up on his way home from practise when someone rang his doorbell three times in rapid succession.

“Hang on!” he muttered as he stomped through the sitting room and into the front hall. Keeping the chain in the latch, he pulled open his door with a scowl, expecting to find another salesman or pamphleteer of some obscure Muggle religion. Instead he found Ron, his face pinched and pale.

“What’s going on?” he asked worriedly. “Is everything all right? Why didn’t you Floo here? Did you and Lavender . . . ?”

“I’m fine,” Ron said. “Lavender’s fine.” He paused and inexplicably glanced over his shoulder at the empty street behind him as though searching for invisible pursuers. “Couldn’t Floo. They might be watching. . . Look, mate, can I come in? There’s something . . .”

“Of course!” Harry said, stepping aside. “I’m sorry. I would have asked you in right away, but then you had this barmy look on your face . . .”

His voice trailed off when Ron didn’t smile at his teasing and instead pushed abruptly past him. Frowning, Harry closed the door.

“I know it’s been a while,” he said. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I’ve been busy with training recently. You must know, after all it’s no secret how colossally the team sucks this season.”

Ron walked into the sitting room and pulled the drapes shut before collapsing into an armchair. His eyes were staring and his expression preoccupied. Harry hadn’t seen him looking this upset since he and Hermione split up.

“Are you sure you and Lavender are doing all right?” he asked.

Ron nodded distractedly, and still without looking at Harry, he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small piece of parchment. Without so much as a word, he handed it to Harry. Frowning, Harry reached out and took it from him. But even after he’d unfolded it and read what it contained, he still felt no closer to enlightenment.

“I take it this is . . . bad?” he said, and Ron nodded.

“And I take it this has something to do with the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes?”

Ron nodded again. After a minute, he cleared his throat and turned to face Harry.

“Do you know that man?”

Harry read the parchment again.

“You mean this Ed Kappington fellow? Never heard the name before in my life.”

Ron watched him closely as Harry sat down on the couch opposite him.

“So, you would have no reason, then, to murder this individual . . .”

Harry shot off the couch again as though he’d just sat down on a spiny urchin.

“Murder him? Ron, I don’t even know him!”

Ron scrubbed his face and then dragged his hands through his hair. He looked exhausted.

“How could this happen?” he said. He sounded utterly mystified. “How can this be?”

But Harry was starting to lose his temper.

“Why ask me?” he said, flopping back down on the couch. “After all, you’re the Auror. You’re the expert in all this Pre-Curse stuff, not me.”

“The Report Generators never lie,” Ron murmured, more to himself it seemed than to Harry. “They can’t lie. Their whole existence is predicting the future . . . in correctly predicting the future.”

“So, you’re saying these . . . these Report Generator thingies are predicting that I’m going to murder this bloke I don’t even know? Ron! That’s ridiculous!”

“I know it is, Harry!” Ron cried. His voice had lost any trace of listlessness and now sounded desperate . . . and scared.

“What . . . what’s going to happen?” Harry asked, almost in a whisper. “Am I going to be arrested?”

Ron nodded, his eyes wide. He seemed to be pleading with Harry to remain calm, and Harry was doing his utmost to comply, despite his confusion and growing alarm. He took a deep breath and waited for Ron to speak.

“Ordinarily, once we get the name of a soon-to-be-murderer, the Commissioner orders his or her arrest. That’s when I put together a tactical team, and we go in and nab the bloke.”

Ron fell silent, his eyes dropping away from Harry’s as he began to closely scrutinize the weave of Harry’s carpet.

“And then what?” Harry asked grimly.

“And then the person is sent to Azkaban.”

“I see. For how long?”

“Forever,” said Ron, choking on the last syllable. “For life, Harry.”

“But why? How? The person hasn’t even done anything!”

“He hasn’t done anything _yet_ , Harry. But he will. That’s the whole point. That’s why the programme is called Pre-Curse.”

“But what if the Report Generator thingies are wrong? What if they made it all up? What if they’re confused? They’re nothing more than inanimate Pensieves after all! They’re like Muggle machines, and Muggle machines break and mess up all the time. Are you saying that just because they’re magical devices they can’t possibly be wrong?”

Ron closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Much that he was about to say was a closely guarded secret. If he hadn’t already forfeited his job by coming to Harry with the Pre-Curse Report Summary, he certainly would do so now by telling Harry how it was generated.

“The Report Generators are not Pensieves, Harry. The Report Inspectors _use_ a Pensieve to access their visions, but the Report Generators themselves are not Pensieves . . .”

“Well, then what are they?” Harry snapped. He was trying to remain patient. He really was. It was just very difficult to be in the dark about something that involved him so intimately . . . and inexplicably.

“They’re people!” Ron blurted. “They’re people, for fuck sake! Former Death Eaters. Virtual vegetables. Pathetic freaks of nature! That’s what they are, Harry. That’s what You-Know-Who made them, and that’s how we – you and me and the rest of wizarding Britain – keep them!”

Ron stopped short. He was breathing heavily, and he had no idea where his outburst had come from. It had rushed from his mouth in a torrent of pent-up emotion he hadn’t even realised he’d harboured. Sudden memories of Hermione flooded his mind. Of arguments in the kitchen late at night. Of hot tears and shouted accusations. _Ron, how could you be a part of something like that? It’s wrong, and you know it!_

Harry was staring at him.

“So . . . so, the Report Generators are actual people?” he said.

Ron nodded.

“And they predict the future?”

Ron nodded again.

“And they . . . these unknown former Death Eaters predicted that I, Harry Potter, am going to murder someone I don’t even know.”

Ron nodded a third time.

“And that doesn’t strike you as suspicious? That doesn’t sound like a set-up to you? Like revenge for my having killed Voldemort? I mean, come on, Ron! I’m not an Auror or anything, but this seems about as transparent as a pane of glass to me.”

“But you don’t understand,” Ron replied. “You seem to think these are people capable of thought, capable of feeling. But they aren’t, Harry. They haven’t been for years. You see, back when You-Know-Who was at the height of his power, he was also at the height of his paranoia. He was convinced there were countless plots to assassinate him, and he grew increasingly enslaved to his fear. So much so that he was distracted from his plans to take over the Ministry, and to find and kill you and the rest of the Order. So, he came up with a complex spell through which he could turn a person into a living, breathing crystal ball, if you will. Something that could be devoted, full-time, to monitoring the future and warning him of any attempts on his life.”

“So, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement is using a spell Voldemort developed to turn former Death Eaters into human crime predictors?” Harry interrupted.

“No,” Ron replied. “You know as well as I do that no one would use one of You-Know-Who’s spells, even if it could be used for good purposes. This may be a bit morally dodgy, but it’s not evil. No, no one has used the spell, and in fact, no one even knows what it is. It’s the people we’re using, not the spell. It’s the three Death Eaters that You-Know-Who, himself, used the spell on . . .”

“What did it do to them? The spell, I mean.”

“Basically, it heightened a latent talent they already possessed and essentially hollowed out the rest of their minds, their consciousness, so the talent could take over. After being placed under the spell, these people lost all capacity for thought on their own. They lost their memories, their personalities, their abilities to think of anything else but the future, and more specifically, the future of violence. They see nothing all day, every day, but horrible violent crimes that haven’t happened yet, but which will happen if there is no intervention.”

Harry grimaced. Despite his alarm over his own fate, he found Ron’s words about these nameless, faceless people living in a constant nightmare of blood and hate and fear absolutely appalling.

“Can’t we cure them?”

Ron shook his head.

“Not only are there no known means of reversing the spell, but what would the point be? I mean, these people are former Death Eaters, and we’ve executed every single former Death Eater except these three. If we cured them, it would be only for the purpose of executing them or sending them to Azkaban for the rest of their lives. Can’t you see what a waste that would be, Harry? These people can be used for a good purpose. They can be used to predict violent crimes and save the lives of countless innocent people!”

Harry stared at his best friend. At some point while he’d been talking, Ron had appeared to stop addressing him and instead seemed to be arguing with some invisible third person. Harry frowned and waved his hand in front of Ron’s face.

“Thanks for the history and morality lesson, mate, but none of this helps to explain why you showed up this evening with a note calling me a murderer. You know I wouldn’t kill anyone. You know that!”

“Of course, I do,” Ron assured him. “I have no idea what’s going on. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Harry gazed down at the folded parchment in his hand for a long moment.

“Is this it?” he asked. “Is this the only report you people get before you arrest someone?”

“It’s the initial report, yes,” said Ron. “It gives us the critical details. The Report Generators can see up to only twenty-four hours into the future . . . so, in that sense you and I are lucky. Sometimes these Report Summaries get generated, and they say we have ten or sometimes as little as four hours. Then, we really have to scramble.”

“You said this is an initial report,” said Harry. “That implies there’s another, more detailed report.”

“Right,” Ron replied. “Actually there are three additional reports, one from each Report Generator. We usually get them a couple of hours after the initial Report Summary . . .”

“And what do the additional reports tell you?”

“Well, each one of the Report Generators sees a slightly different . . . how can I describe it? Slice of time, I guess . . .”

“You mean, one may see Monday morning, while another sees Monday afternoon, and the third sees Monday evening?”

“Basically. To be honest with you, I’ve never understood all the details. All I know is that in order for a Pre-Curse Report Summary to be generated, at least two of the three Report Generators must predict a crime.”

“So, it’s kind of a ‘two out of three’ wins . . .”

“Yeah, or the majority rules. But you’ve get the basic idea.”

“So, if only one Report Generator predicts a murder from looking at his or her little slice of time, or what-have-you, no Pre-Curse Report Summary will be generated?”

“Right. Which means no one is ordered arrested.”

“Unless, of course, there’s been a mistake.”

“Which it appears there has been.”

They sat in silence for a long moment, each of them lost in his own thoughts.

“But . . . ,” said Harry at last. “Correct me if I’m way off the mark here, but isn’t it at least possible that the third Report Generator could be right, and the other two are wrong?”

“Well, usually all three Report Generators agree,” Ron replied. “It’s very rare that a prediction isn’t unanimous.”

“Rare,” said Harry. “But not impossible.”

“No, not impossible. But in order for the Aurors to act, at least two of the three Report Generators must agree that a crime will be committed. Otherwise, it would be unfair.”

Harry snorted.

“It’s unfair to arrest an innocent man if one of these freaks in a basement says he’s going to kill someone, but it’s perfectly fair if two say it? Nice criminal justice system you people have there.”

Ron glared at him.

“When was the last time someone was murdered?” he snapped. “When was the last time someone was beaten within an inch of his life? When was the last time someone was raped, or kidnapped, or spell-damaged beyond repair? Not since the war ended, that’s when! And do you want to know why? It’s because every single violent crime has been accurately predicted by the Report Generators . . .”

“That may be,” Harry said. “But that doesn’t mean the net has never been cast too wide. Maybe you’ve caught all the murderers and rapists, but maybe you’ve also ensnared a few innocent people along the way. Wouldn’t it be better to go with three-out-of-three, instead of just two-out-of-three?”

Ron frowned.

“But what if that means a murderer goes free just because one of the three Report Generators’ reports doesn’t agree?”

“Is that worse than sending an innocent man to Azkaban for the rest of his life?”

Ron looked at him for a long moment before sighing deeply and collapsing back into his chair.

“If you had asked me that question two hours ago, I would have said ‘yes.’ But now . . . ?”

Ron closed his eyes wearily.

“Now, all I can think about is my best mate in Azkaban. I don’t know about any of the big philosophical shite, but I do know one thing. You don’t belong in prison, Harry, and I’m going to do everything in my power to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

He opened his eyes and smiled weakly at Harry, and Harry, in turn, smiled weakly back.

“What can I do?” Harry asked.

“The first thing we can do,” Ron replied, “is get our hands on the Report Generators’ reports as soon as Euan can write them up.”

Despite his fear, Harry felt himself smile at Ron’s use of “we,” as well as his mention of Euan Abercrombie’s name.

“Euan’s helping you with this?”

Ron nodded.

“We Gryffindors need to stick together.”

“He’s not mad at me, then?”

Ron smiled.

“If he ever was mad at you, that went away when he hooked up with Colin. They just moved in together last month.”

Harry stood from the couch and went to the closet to get his coat.

“I felt bad about the way things ended between Euan and me . . .”

Ron followed Harry into the front hall.

“You were honest with him, though. I think he appreciated that.”

Harry laughed rather ruefully as they stepped out onto the front steps and he locked the door behind them. The sun had set more than an hour ago, but its light still lingered in the late spring sky, rendering the street lamps almost superfluous.

“Honest about my stupidity. What an admirable trait!”

“It’s better than lying about it,” said Ron. “But promise me, Harry. When I get you out of this mess – because I will get you out of this mess – promise me you’ll make a real effort this time to forget about him and move on. It’s been seven years, after all! Even if he is still alive, do you really think that git is still carrying a torch for you?”

“Hey! None of that ‘git’ stuff,” Harry replied sternly. “You may never be able to refer to him as Draco, but the least you can do in my presence is refer to him by his name and not by an epithet. He was my lover after all!”

Ron sighed.

“Don’t I know it,” he muttered under his breath, but when Harry jabbed him in the ribs, he relented. “I’m sorry. It’s just that it’s time to move on, Harry. It’s been too long to be nothing more serious than head-games, even for Malfoy. He’s either over you, or he’s dead. There are no other explanations left. And either way, you have to move on. You’re only twenty-six, for Merlin’s sake! You’ve got your whole life ahead of you!”

“Hopefully not in Azkaban,” Harry said darkly.

Ron swallowed hard as the recollection of their precarious situation struck him with the force of a battering ram.

“Not in Azkaban,” he said, lifting an arm and draping it over his best friend’s shoulders as they walked. “And not in Malfoy’s thrall either, which, to my way of thinking, at least, amounts to more or less the same thing.”

Harry turned his head and smiled faintly but with determination.

“Thanks, mate,” he said. “I know what this is going to cost you.”

“As long as it doesn’t cost me your friendship, then I don’t give a shite,” said Ron, trying to sound more confident than he felt. He cleared his throat. “Or my ability to give your Malfoy-whipped arse a kick.”

Harry laughed.

“Fair enough,” he said. “I won’t try to pretend I don’t deserve it.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

When they arrived at the Department for Magical Law Enforcement building, Ron stopped and turned to Harry, his expression a picture of agonised guilt.

“I’m sorry, mate. I can’t . . .”

Harry sighed and gave him a lopsided smile.

“Of course, you can’t. Go on. I’ll meet you . . .” He paused and looked around for a moment before glimpsing a small neglected-looking park down the street. “ . . . in that park over there. All right?”

Ron nodded reluctantly.

“Will you be okay?”

“I’ll be better when you get your arse in there and get this thing sorted out,” Harry replied. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to fling myself under a coach.”

“I’ll be as quick as I can . . .”

“Just go on, already!”

Ron smiled grimly and ran up the steps. Harry watched him until he disappeared through the door before stepping back. All at once, the air seemed to ripple like a motorway under a mid-summer sun, and the place where once an impressive, windowless stone building had stood was now an unbroken row of unremarkable townhouses. He sighed and crossed the street.

The park didn’t look like a place in which he wanted to be alone after dark. He sat down on a dilapidated bench, drew his wand, and laid it across his knees. Having to sit and wait while his future hung in the balance was hardly how he’d planned on spending his Friday night, but there was clearly nothing for it. He couldn’t go into the DMLE building with Ron. Even without this new suspicion clinging to his name, Harry’s presence in any Ministry building would not go unnoticed and unremarked. After all, he’d made a career after the war of harassing the Minister and his officials until he’d finally been formally banned from entering a government building without an escort. Looking back with the hindsight of more than four years, he could see there were valid reasons behind it, but at the time, the highly-publicised ban had felt like just another personal affront. He’d fought like a magical killing machine in the war. He’d vaporised Voldemort and aided in the capture of dozens of Death Eaters. One would think the least his government could do for him in return would be to provide him with the accounting he’d requested of all the people who had been executed since Victory Day. But, no. The one thing he’d wanted had been the one thing he was denied.

He swallowed down the bitterness that rose like bile in his throat. Even after all this time, it still stung to remember how he’d been reduced to pleading tears in the Minister’s office; how he’d had to stalk the Head Auror like a crazed lunatic just to have him say, for the millionth time, “I have nothing to tell you, Potter!” Even compared with the war and all the hardship and horror it had brought, that year had been the worst year of his life. Irony notwithstanding.

He’d escaped one enslavement for another. Immediately after shrugging off the chains that were his quest to kill Voldemort, he’d donned new ones. But this time, it wasn’t a quest of hate, but of love. He had promised Draco . . . promised him! . . . that if anything happened on that final undercover mission that Harry would find him – dead or alive. And if he were alive, Harry had promised him the secrecy and subterfuge would end, and Harry would tell the world – shout it from the fucking rooftops! – that he loved Draco Malfoy and fuck the world if they couldn’t handle it. And if he were dead? Well, then Harry had promised him that he would see to it that Draco was buried on the hill beneath the chestnut tree where he and Harry had first . . .

. . . It was a struggle, but Harry at last managed to force the memory of that afternoon and their first kiss from his mind. It was only recently that he’d even begun to be able to recall bits and pieces of it without breaking down completely. And that was when he was feeling relatively strong. Right now, he was feeling anything but, and remembering Draco – the way Draco’s hair kept blowing into his face and the way Draco had kept tucking it behind his ear without even thinking, so focused had he been on what he was saying, on trying to find the words to make Harry understand why he’d been acting like such a prick ever since he’d arrived at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place – would be a disaster . . .

Draco.

Harry closed his eyes and surrendered to the desire to see again his lover’s face. He hadn’t the strength to recollect whole afternoons or long summer nights or the way Draco used to melt into his arms when they embraced. But he had come to learn over the years that just imagining Draco’s face, as though he were looking at a portrait in a gallery, had a deeply calming effect. It wasn’t because Draco was beautiful – although he was that. It was because Draco, his eyes softened with affection, was still a miracle for Harry. Still a symbol that anything was possible in this world. After all, who would have imagined that two boys so at odds could come, not only to like and respect, but to love one another. Love and adore. Because that was the word that always sprang to mind when Harry thought of his long-lost lover. He had come to adore Draco and everything about him. His laugh, his brashness, his unexpected capacity for earnestness. The way he would look up every now and again while he was reading and gaze thoughtfully out the window. And whenever he’d seen him like that, Harry had always wanted to cross the room and drop to his knees and take Draco’s chin in his hand and force Draco to look at him. To see him. To know that he, Draco, was loved and cherished and desired and would be for every single second of every single day for the rest of his life . . . .

A cry startled Harry from his reverie, and his fingers tightened reflexively around his wand. It wasn’t a human cry, and when he heard it again, he looked up into the branches of the park’s sparsely planted trees. It had been an owl’s cry, but what kind of owl, he wasn’t sure.

On the third cry, he spotted it, and it flew down to land on the bench beside him. Regarding it warily, he considered the possibilities of its origin. Either the missive it bore was from Ron’s boss ordering Harry to surrender himself, or it was a note from his coach telling him practise had been rescheduled for five or some other equally forsaken hour. Both possibilities were just as unwelcome in Harry’s view. But at least a letter from his coach didn’t raise the spectre of a lifetime in Azkaban for the murder of someone he had never even heard of, let alone met . . .

“Ouch! Hey, cut it out!”

He jerked his hand away from the owl and brought it to his mouth.

“That hurt!”

The owl blinked and held out its foot, and before it could peck him a second time, he reached down and retrieved the parchment. Without waiting for him to read it, the owl hopped onto the back of the bench and flew away.

Taking a deep breath and preparing himself for the worst, he unrolled the letter. But what he read there was just as unexpected as the news Ron had brought him earlier in the evening. He read through the short note and then read it again.

_Dear Mr. Potter,_

_You don’t know me. I am a colleague of your friend, Hermione, and it is out of concern for her that I’m writing to you. Something happened at work today, and I think Hermione may be in trouble. She’s been dating our boss for about a month, but yesterday she told me she wanted to end things between them, and that she didn’t care for him more than a friend. Anyhow, he called her into his office this afternoon and closed the door. I and a few other people could hear shouting, and then we heard Hermione scream, and then they both Apparated away. Now, I don’t want to alarm you for no reason, but I also didn’t want to call the Aurors on my boss if there isn’t, in fact, anything wrong. I was hoping you could stop by Hermione’s flat and make sure she’s okay. Hopefully, this is all a big misunderstanding. But if it isn’t . . . well, I just want Hermione to be safe._

_Thank you!_

_A Friend_

He stared at the letter, completely stunned. Hermione might be in danger! He had just had dinner with her last weekend, and she hadn’t mentioned a new man in her life, but then again, she had become rather circumspect about mentioning her relationships to him after she and Ron had split up. So, the fact that he hadn’t known she was dating again wasn’t all that surprising. And perhaps she hadn’t mentioned this bloke because she hadn’t liked him that much and was only seeing him to keep her job.

He rose from the bench and prepared to Apparate, but just before he did, he paused. What if Hermione really was in trouble? What if this bloke had kidnapped her or hurt her . . . or worse? Was this the start of the prediction? Were these the wheels that were being set into motion? What if he found this man hurting his best friend? How could he not hex him into a slimy puddle?

Harry gasped out loud. Where just a few minutes ago, it had been literally unthinkable that he could kill some random bloke, it was now entirely imaginable. Hell, it was almost inevitable!

Pulling his thoughts together as best he could, he began to put together a plan. He would go to Hermione’s flat, of course. Not to do so was not even an option. If she was in trouble, he had to help her. And it wasn’t as though he could simply contact the Community Policing Aurors and have them do it. Ron had told him that all branches of the Aurors would receive copies of the Pre-Curse Report Summary. It was one of the checks and balances that existed to ensure that no one in the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes could accept a bribe from a would-be murderer in exchange for “inadvertently” losing a Pre-Curse Report Summary. Ron had bought Harry time, but he couldn’t hide the news forever . . .

So, calling the Aurors to check on Hermione was out of the question. And waiting for Ron was also out of the question. Hermione could be in danger now! And every second Harry spent deliberating over what he should do could mean the difference between life and death.

He paced before the park bench, wracking his brain. If he went, he would just have to stop himself from killing or maiming anyone. How hard could that be, after all? There were plenty of nonfatal hexes he could use. There was _Stupefy_ and _Petrificus Totalus_ and a dozen other defensive spells, not to mention a quick right hook followed by an uppercut.

Having convinced himself it was safe to proceed, he Apparated to Hermione’s front door and knocked sharply.

“Coming!” she called, and instantly he felt the adrenaline start to drain from his body. He’d been virtually convinced he’d find her in danger. After all, it was the only way the prediction made any sense.

“Harry,” she said, opening the door. “I’m so glad you came.”

He frowned.

“You sound like you were expecting me.”

She took a deep breath as if steeling herself for something unpleasant.

“Actually, I was. Please, Harry, come in.”

She stepped aside, and he walked into her flat. Even though he’d had no idea what to expect (or not expect), he was still surprised to discover about a half-dozen people squashed together in her tiny living room, drinking tea and eating take-away. They all looked up excitedly when he entered and beamed at him with poorly disguised hope. It was a situation he had encountered frequently during the war, and its familiarity made it all the more unsettling.

“Er . . . Hermione?”

“Remember I told you I started a new job, Harry?” she replied quickly as she began rubbing his back as though he were a nervous horse at a starting gate.

He nodded, wondering what that had to do with the people eating curry on her futon.

“And remember I told you we were looking into human rights abuses by the Ministry?”

He nodded again.

“Well, these are my co-workers. This is Michael, and this here is Janet. Over there on the divan is Margaret, Joan, Susan, and David . . .” They all waved and beamed at Harry. “And there, in the armchair, is Ed. Ed Kappington.”

Harry stared at Ed, and Ed stared back at him.

“Er . . . I thought . . .”

Hermione put both of her arms around him and rested her chin on his shoulder. And, again, Harry found himself trying not to recall the war.

“I know, Harry,” she said gently. “And I’m sorry we lured you here under false pretenses. That was Janet who wrote the letter . . .” Janet waved in embarrassed apology from her perch on the stone hearth.

“But I don’t understand . . .” Harry’s confusion, though not abating, was rapidly giving way to anger.

“I know,” said Hermione soothingly. “We’ll explain everything. Do you want some curry? I got your favourite, chicken tikka masala . . .”

“No,” said Harry tersely. “I want to know what’s going on.”

The hopeful looks on everyone’s faces dimmed slightly, but Hermione forged ahead, her voice determinedly cheerful.

“We know about the Pre-Curse Report Summary, Harry. We know it has been predicted that you’re going to murder Ed.”

Harry turned away from Ed to stare at her in astonishment.

“But . . . but how?”

“Ed’s sister is an Auror in the Community Policing Department. She contacted Ed as soon as she learned it was predicted that he was to be killed. That was the first thing we knew. We didn’t discover that you were the alleged murderer until later.”

Harry nodded and relaxed enough to permit Hermione to lead him to an armchair recently vacated by Michael.

“At first we were afraid for Ed,” said Janet. “But then we realised this may just be the moment we’ve been waiting for.”

Harry narrowed his eyes.

“What do you mean?” he asked suspiciously.

Hermione jumped in, her piercing glance at Janet effectively silencing the poor, defenceless woman.

“Harry, we’ve been searching for months for a way to bring down the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes and end their barbarous Pre-Curse Programme. It’s an abominable practise that has absolutely no place at all in a civilised society. Just think! Hundreds of people like you have been unjustly accused and imprisoned. All those people in Azkaban? Not a single one of them has committed a crime, and many of them probably never would have.”

He stared at her as the import of her words began to sink in.

“I’m being accused,” he said slowly, “of killing a man I didn’t know until five minutes ago and with whom I have absolutely no quarrel.”

“Exactly!” she exclaimed. “That’s what we all realised the second we heard it was you who is supposed to kill Ed. It was preposterous! And that’s when we knew that we’d stumbled onto an obvious mistake – something we could use to show the public just how dangerous and wrong the whole system is.”

Harry nodded and reached for a teacup. She broke into a relieved grin when she saw him start to relax and settle in.

“Because it _is_ wrong, Harry. Hundreds of people are imprisoned every year based on nothing but a dream! It’s a system based entirely on faith, not on laws. And since when has anyone wanted to trust his fate to nothing but blind faith?”

Around them, Hermione’s co-workers all nodded in agreement.

“I’m so sorry we had to trick you like that,” she continued. “But I had to be one hundred percent sure that you would come. After all, I couldn’t just ask you to stop by. You know how anti-social you’ve been lately . . .”

“I haven’t been anti-social,” Harry exclaimed around a mouthful of chicken tikka masala. “I’ve been busy with training.”

“Regardless,” she said, “I had to be sure that you would come immediately, but I also had to be sure you wouldn’t bring anyone else with you. I knew if I invented a reason that permitted you time, you’d go get Ron . . .”

Harry started.

“Shit! Ron! He thinks I’m waiting for him in the park . . . Hermione, we’ve got to get word to him and let him know what’s going on.”

Her expression darkened.

“I don’t want Ron to know about this,” she said.

Harry looked at her.

“But why not?”

“Harry, you have no idea how devoted Ron is to the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes. He believes in it and everything they do. He thinks this is the best thing that ever happened to society and that he’s saving hundreds of innocent lives. But what he refuses to consider is the possibility that he’s not saving lives as much as ruining them needlessly.”

“But Ron’s the one who told me about the prediction,” Harry replied. “He’s there now, trying to see the Report Generators’ reports. I think he may be looking for a way to alter or destroy them . . .”

“Merlin save us!” exclaimed Michael. “He’s going to ruin everything! We’ve got to stop him!”

“What do you mean?” asked Harry, utterly perplexed. “He wants to help me.”

“This isn’t just about helping you, Harry,” said Kappington, and Harry started at the sound of his voice. He was a big man, and his voice was low and almost menacing.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” said Kappington, “that this is bigger than just you or me, Harry. This is about ending a brutal system that was brought into existence by Voldemort himself.”

“But . . .”

“But nothing. Your friend Ron believes in this system, Harry. If he destroys those Reports, he’ll accomplish two things: he’ll save his best friend from Azkaban, and he’ll prevent anyone from looking too closely at the Pre-Curse Programme and discovering this mistake.”

Harry shook his head, confused.

“But . . . I don’t understand. Wouldn’t that be a good thing?”

“No, it wouldn’t, Harry. You see, along with that letter we sent to you, we also sent one to my sister informing her that someone tipped you off about the prediction, and that you are in the process of fleeing Britain to escape your just fate. As soon as she hears this, I can assure you that my sister will be terrified for my life and will immediately get the Aurors to issue an emergency broadcast, informing the public not only of the prediction, but of your fugitive state. In other words, any minute now, you will be wizarding Britain’s most wanted would-be criminal.”

No longer hungry in the slightest, Harry frowned and set aside his plate of curry.

“Why on earth would you do such a thing?!”

“Because we had to,” said Kappington.

Harry stared at him, but when he did not elaborate, Harry turned to Hermione. His face must have reflected his confusion and hurt because she instantly began wringing her hands.

“I’m so sorry, Harry. But we had to do it so our publicity stunt could work. Don’t you see? All of wizarding Britain will think you are going to murder Ed, but then you and Ed are going to stand up tomorrow in front of the rally we’re organising, and everyone will see for themselves that the Report Generators’ predictions were wrong. The two of you will be living, breathing proof of that fact!”

“And that’s why Ron can’t know what we’re doing. I know he wants to save you, Harry. But that doesn’t mean that, in the process of saving you, he wants the whole Pre-Curse Programme brought to an end. But we do. Ron will do what he can to save the system, and if he discovers our plan or, Merlin forbid, destroys the reports . . .”

Harry nodded slowly.

“I think I understand,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean I like it. Ron has jeopardised everything to try to help me, and this seems like a shitty way to repay him.”

“But do you understand that the Pre-Curse Programme must end and that this might be the only way of doing it?” Hermione pressed.

Harry sighed. “Yeah, I do. How could I not? Considering, like you said, I’m living proof that it makes mistakes? So, now what?”

“Now we hide you away for a while,” said Kappington. “The Aurors are going to come looking for me, too. Especially since they won’t be able to find you. I’m going to have an Auror guard for the next twelve hours, and obviously it won’t do at all for them to find you here with me.”

“And how do you plan to hide me away?” Harry asked. “The Aurors aren’t idiots, you know. They have pretty sophisticated means of tracking people.”

“And we have equally sophisticated means of hiding them,” Joan interjected.

Harry turned at the sound of her voice just in time to see her pull a wizarding ID card from her purse. And in the blink of an eye, the tall middle-aged witch with strawberry-blonde hair had turned into an unremarkable-looking brown-haired wizard in his mid-twenties. Harry was so astonished that he actually rubbed his eyes in an effort to clear them.

“What on earth . . . ?”

“Harry, meet your new self,” said Hermione proudly, and Harry could only surmise that the identity-altering ID card must be one of her latest inventions. “This is Ned Noodginton . . .”

Harry groaned.

“Ned Noodginton? Could you have come up with a more pathetic-sounding name?”

Hermione blushed.

“That wasn’t my idea. Some of my co-workers got a little carried away.” She paused to glare at David who was whistling tunelessly and examining his fingernails.

“I don’t even know you, mate,” Harry told him sullenly, “and you’re trying to ruin my life.”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“Twelve hours is hardly the rest of your life, Harry.”

“. . . and being Ned Noodginton for a day is hardly equivalent to celebrating your 100th birthday in Azkaban,” said Kappington without a trace of humour in his voice.

Harry nodded his concession and reached for the ID that Joan-cum-Ned held out to him.

“As long as that ID is on your person, either in your pocket or your hand, you will have a different appearance, a different voice, and even different mannerisms . . .”

“. . . which is quite an improvement over Polyjuice Potion,” Joan interjected again.

Hermione blushed proudly.

“Well, I had lots of help developing it,” she said demurely. “So, Harry, despite not really existing, Ned Noodginton has an entire life history. He’s twenty-five, grew up in Leeds, and didn’t go to Hogwarts because he’s a borderline Squib. Instead, he attended nursing school in Glasgow and is about to start training at St. Mungo’s. He’s living in a rented room in a Muggle boarding house. Aside from work, Ned doesn’t do much. In fact, he’s so quiet and nondescript that people tend to forget him within a minute or two of meeting him.”

Hermione paused to grin at him.

“You always said you wanted to be a nobody, Harry. Well, here’s your chance.”

He smirked at her and accepted the ID card from Joan. Instantly, he felt a rippling sensation spread throughout his entire body and watched as his hands grew blunt-fingered and brown. He held them up and squinted at them.

“Oh right, I forgot,” said Hermione. “Ned Noodginton has perfect eyesight.”

Harry pulled off his glasses and tucked them in an inside coat pocket.

“It’s the weekend, so Ned doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow,” Hermione continued. “In fact, aside for going out to get some breakfast and Saturday’s edition of The Prophet, Ned doesn’t intend to leave his rented room for the next twelve hours.”

“I get the hint,” said Harry. “But how will I know when and where to go for this rally you people are planning?”

“That’s why Ned will be getting tomorrow’s Prophet.”

Harry nodded.

“Got it.”

Just then, there came a sharp, urgent knock at the door.

“That must be the Aurors,” Kappington hissed. “They won’t recognise you, but you should get out of here anyway. Just to be on the safe side.”

“Coming!” Hermione called.

“You can take the Knight Bus, or you can Apparate to this address,” Kappington continued, shoving a folded piece of parchment into Harry’s hand. “It’s a car park near the boarding house Ned’s staying at. It should be empty by this time of night.”

“Oh, and I forgot to mention, Ned has already rented a room,” said Joan. “The lady at the desk will recognise you because I . . . or rather, Ned . . . went there a couple of hours ago and filled out the paperwork.”

Harry didn’t know whether to feel admiration or not. All the obvious planning gave him the creeps and reminded him of the way he – and Draco – had been used like pawns in the war. He repressed an instinctive shudder. He just had to remember that this was for his own good and only for a day . . .

“We’re looking for Ed Kappington,” said an official-sounding voice at Hermione’s door.

“Of course, he’s right inside,” Hermione said, opening the door a crack. “But before you come in, if I could just ask you to _Scourgify_ your shoes. Had my carpets cleaned only last week . . .”

“Get going!” hissed Kappington as Harry stood and prepared to Apparate. “We’ll see you at tomorrow’s rally . . .”

Still feeling rather stunned by the speed at which his circumstances kept changing, Harry could think of nothing to say in response. Instead, he merely nodded and vanished without another word.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Unsurprisingly, Harry found it impossible to fall asleep.

The room Joan had rented for him/Ned was high-ceilinged and sparsely furnished. In a corner by a wardrobe with peeling varnish was a grotty sink whose tap dripped endlessly but irregularly. Harry lay, fully dressed, in the middle of the sagging bed, listening to the plip . . . plip . . . plip and watching the glare of headlights from passing cars track across the walls and slide out of the dark, little room like fleeing ghosts.

Four hours ago he’d been putting away groceries, and now here he was in a cheap rented room in an unfamiliar part of Muggle London, a would-be murderer and fugitive from justice. It was all so ludicrous that he felt like laughing, and he suspected that he’d be doing just that if he didn’t also feel so utterly . . . weary.

It was a weariness out of proportion to his actual circumstances, and as he lay there, staring up at the distant ceiling, Harry knew exactly where it came from. It had been blurring the edges of his world for months now, turning his days into poorly-developed snapshots of someone else’s life. Someone who got out of bed in the morning. Someone who ate breakfast and read the paper at his kitchen table. Someone who went to practises and grocery stores and occasional films. Someone who attended weddings and christenings and birthday parties. Someone who could not possibly be Harry. Because Harry couldn’t – and shouldn’t – be doing any of those things. Not when the love of his life was still missing. Not when Draco went unfound, unburied and unmourned.

Harry rolled onto his side and curled into a foetal ball, his fists tucked under his chin. Without the familiar surroundings of his home and the comfortable predictability of his daily rituals, he felt stripped and vulnerable. Every beat of his heart was painful in a way it hadn’t been for a long time, and he realised, with the force of a revelation, that nothing – nothing – had got easier or better. Time hadn’t healed his wounds as much as numbed them, and the instant the bandages of routine were removed, they bled anew.

He stared at the curtainless window and tried to will himself to see the building beyond it, a shop with its neon sign advertising Player’s Extra Lights. But instead all he could see was Draco, and at last, with a defeated sob, he stopped struggling and let the memories wash over him.

Draco and Snape had turned up the night of the first killing frost, and Harry had later figured out that the two events were no random coincidence. They’d been sleeping outdoors since June, moving to a new shelter every night. But with winter coming . . . Well, it was give themselves up or freeze. A Hobson’s choice to say the least.

It hadn’t taken long for both of them to realise just how much the other had changed in the intervening six months since they’d last seen one another. And it hadn’t taken long for Harry to notice the way Draco’s face turned pink every time he caught Harry looking at him. But the winter had been filled with fierce skirmishing and heavy losses, and Harry hadn’t had the time or the will to do anything but sleep and eat and fight and watch Draco’s once-tenuous connection to the Order grow slowly, but steadily, stronger. By the spring, he’d felt sure enough in his suppositions to invite Draco to play a game of chess one afternoon.

Draco had looked up from the book he was reading.

“And why would I want to do that?” he’d asked coldly.

Harry had rolled his eyes.

“Because it’ll be fun and you’re bored.”

“Not so bored that I’d stoop to spend time with you, Potter.”

But Harry had only smiled and shrugged.

“Have it your way, Malfoy.”

He wasn’t blind after all. He’d seen the way Draco looked at him when he thought Harry didn’t notice. He’d heard the breath that caught in Draco’s throat when he encountered Harry in the hallway, leaving the bathroom wearing nothing but a towel around his waist. He’d felt the way Draco’s hand lingered whenever he had occasion to touch Harry, even for the flimsiest of reasons. He knew Draco had a crush on him, and that it was only a matter of time . . .

In the end, Draco had been the one to do it. The one to invite Harry out for a rare walk. The one to choose a perfect May evening and the most romantic location. The first to stammer out words of affection and confessions of desire. The first to ask if he would mind terribly . . . whether he might . . . would it be all right if he could, perhaps, kiss Harry. Just this once . . .

Their relationship had become very physical very fast. Every chance they got, they took – no matter how risky, how quick and rough and desperate. Harry had been surprised (although in hindsight he wondered why, considering the way Draco was about everything in his life) by how passionate Draco was. He seemed insatiable, and every time that Harry reached for him and pulled him close, he was already hard and straining and ready to rut against whatever part of himself Harry offered. After that first kiss, there had been no holding back, and they’d soon moved irreversibly beyond holding hands and rubbing against each other’s fully-clothed bodies in Draco’s narrow bed in that tiny room with its single window overlooking the neighbours’ concrete garden walls with the broken glass embedded along their tops glinting in the moonlight . . . .

_Say something!_

Draco’s breath was hot against Harry’s throat as he seized Harry’s hand roughly and pushed it into the open fly of his jeans.

_Like what? Merlin, you’re so fucking hot? You make me need to come? Please suck my cock? What?_

Draco giggled – _giggled_ – breathlessly.

_Don’t say ‘cock,’_ he said. _It makes me laugh.”_

Harry grinned and pressed his palm against the warm expanse of cloth that still lay between his hand and Draco’s erection.

_And I told you to stop wearing pants._

_Oh, so everyone can see when I get a hard-on watching you drink a Butterbeer?_

_You get hard watching me drink a beer?_

Even in the darkness, Harry saw Draco blush. And when he kissed Draco, he could feel his embarrassment on his lips, hot and dry like a fever.

_That’s okay,_ he said. _I get hard watching you do nothing at all._

Draco inhaled sharply and smiled into Harry’s neck.

_Say something,_ he repeated.

_Draco, I need to feel you._

Harry withdrew his hand and slid it under the waistband of Draco’s underwear, and suddenly Draco’s penis was in his hand, hotter than a brand . . .

_No,_ Draco breathed. _Not in English._

_Ah, you want Parseltongue again,_ Harry said, grinning. _Even if you can’t bring yourself to say the word._

_Fuck off,_ Draco replied, searching blindly for Harry’s mouth and snogging Harry’s nose for a moment by mistake. He was breathless, and his hips were already moving in quick piston-like thrusts over which, Harry knew from experience, Draco had little control.

_Actually, that’s quite appropriate because fucking you is all I can think about these days,_ Harry said, the words slipping from his tongue like an oil-soaked ribbon of sound – a gliding sinuous stream of breath caressing Draco’s neck as Harry kissed his too-hot flesh.

_Oh!_ Draco gasped. And then, _Don’t stop._

_If I keep going, will you let me touch you . . . there?_ Harry whispered in English.

Draco froze for a long moment, and Harry was sure he’d say no, but then he nodded quickly against Harry’s shoulder.

_Just . . . just keep talking,_ he whispered.

Harry nodded. This was not the first time he’d asked, but it was the first time Draco hadn’t said no. Gently, Harry slid his hand down the length of Draco’s erection until his fingers curled around Draco’s scrotum, with his testicles pulled so tight against his body that Harry could barely move them at all. Draco moaned and spread his legs as Harry’s fingers paused to massage the hard ridge of muscle and engorged flesh that stretched from Draco’s tightly clutched balls to . . .

_Keep talking, Potter!_ Draco said, his voice cracking with a potent combination of arousal and embarrassment. If this was the only way Draco could keep his nerve and thus the only way that Harry could finally touch Draco . . . there, well, then, it could hardly be considered an imposition.

Harry swallowed hard. His heart felt suddenly like it was pumping too much blood. More than a fist-sized organ was designed to accommodate . . .

_Draco, I’m telling you this in Parseltongue because you’d never let me say it to you in English. I want to be inside you. I want to feel a part of you I’ve never been able to touch before. I want to know what you feel like._

Draco froze again, but only for a moment, when the tip of Harry’s middle finger finally found what it sought.

_This is so dirty,_ he said, his face still buried in Harry’s neck.

Harry stopped prodding the damp puckered flesh with a heart-rending reluctance.

_Do you want me to stop?_ he asked, drawing back so he could look into Draco’s face.

But Draco wouldn’t let him.  
 _No,_ he said, hiding his face from Harry’s gaze once again. _But keep talking, okay?_

Harry kissed the tip of his ear and began whispering gentle nonsense as he continued rubbing Draco’s opening as though he were shining a Galleon. As hot as the rest of Draco was, it felt cool compared to the moist heat nestled between Draco’s tightly clenched arse cheeks, and Harry suddenly realised that as much as he longed to touch Draco here, he wanted even more to smell him and taste him and press the head of his penis against this patch of warm wet until he came.

Draco whimpered as Harry’s fingertip pushed past the ring of muscle. His hips had stilled as Harry had rubbed him, but now they started thrusting again. Probably despite himself, Draco was slowly driving Harry deeper, impaling himself on Harry’s finger . . .

_You’ll grow to like this,_ Harry murmured in Parseltongue, watching as gooseflesh rippled down Draco’s arms with each liquid syllable. _I promise. I don’t care that it’s dirty. In fact, I like that it’s dirty. You make me feel dirty, Draco, and I love it. I love that I want to do things to you that I’d never thought I’d dream of wanting to do to anyone. I love what you do to me. I love how it feels, and I never want to give it up. I never want to give_ you _up._

Harry could feel Draco’s resistance weakening as the tension seemed to drain from his body with the sound of Harry’s voice. Slowly, incrementally, he loosened to accept Harry’s finger into his most intimate of openings. He was moaning now, on every exhale, his head lolling back on the pillow as his shyness seemed to ebb with each thrust of his hips. And all the while, Harry kept speaking his sibilant words. Saying how beautiful Draco was. How perfect. How unbearably hot.

_Can I . . .?_ Draco gasped, reaching for Harry’s hip. _Can I touch you, too?_

Harry surprised himself by blushing furiously. His only thought had been of touching Draco there, not to have Draco touch him in return . . .

_Er . . ._

_Please,_ Draco pleaded. His eyes glittered in the moonlight filtering through the lace curtain, and with his guard down and the colour high in his cheeks, he looked even younger than his eighteen years.

_Please. I want . . . I want us to stay the same._

And even though he wasn’t one hundred percent positive that he knew what Draco meant, Harry nodded. They were the same age, the same height and weight, both Seekers, and both orphans. They both drank their tea strong with milk and sugar, and they both fought like feral dogs when they were cornered. They both usually ejaculated prematurely, and they both were always hard again in ten minutes. They both had watched their mothers die, though neither of them could recall the events clearly, and at night, when they slept, they both reached blindly for the other, clutching pyjamas and fingers and strands of hair, as though they were twins separated at birth and seeking again that perfect union, head-to-toe and toe-to-head, like two comma-sized clusters of cells in the same womb. Like Yin and Yang curled around each other in faded floral sheets.

_All right,_ Harry breathed.

Wordlessly, they drew apart and struggled out of their jeans and underwear, their legs long and skinny, and compared with their t-shirt clad torsos, deathly white in the moonlight. Harry watched mesmerised as Draco put his finger in his mouth and sucked for a minute. When at last he withdrew it, a strand of saliva followed, hanging, glistening like a spider’s thread for an instant before breaking.

Draco giggled nervously.

_Gross,_ he breathed. And then, _Come here._

Harry wet his own finger, realising as he did so that what he tasted on his skin was Draco’s most secret scent. And the thought made his balls clench and his cock pump out a thick strand. Harry moaned – a breathless feverish sound in the quiet room.

_Don’t come yet,_ Draco murmured as he reached around Harry and fumbled to spread his arse cheeks before the spit on his finger could dry. They were laying on their sides, facing each other, their erections brushing with every twitch. _Think of pickled toads or something._

Harry giggled and wormed his way closer to Draco until their foreheads, the tips of their noses, their chests, their cocks, and their knees touched each other. Harry could feel Draco’s brow furrowing in concentration as he struggled artlessly to wriggle his finger into Harry’s anus.

_I always knew you were a tight-arse, Potter,_ he said teasingly. Harry tried hard to relax, but it seemed the harder he tried, the tighter he clenched. So, instead he decided to focus on Draco and seeking that hot moist exquisite opening again.

He knew when he found it as much by Draco’s sharp inhalation as by the sudden give beneath his still-wet finger, and before Draco had the chance to force him out, he pressed in deeply.

_Not fair!_ Draco squeaked, but Harry shut him up with a kiss that was wet and deep and sloppy and in perfect tempo with his frenetic fingering of Draco’s arse.

_Come on, Harry,_ he half-whimpered, half-whined. _Let me in._

Harry laughed because, really, getting finger fucked by Draco was like doing pretty much anything else with Draco. A breathless, headlong competition in which the goal was not nearly as important as beating Harry to it.

_Your finger’s too dry, you prat._

_Oh, for the love of . . . Potter, just turn over!_

And suddenly Harry’s finger was bereft of that soft tightly clinging hole, and Draco was rolling him on to his stomach.

_What are you . . . ?_

And then Harry felt it. Hands on his arse, spreading him open, and then . . . oh my god! . . . a tongue. A tongue, _there_!

_Draco!_

This time it was Harry who squeaked, but Draco didn’t seem to notice. He was too busy licking and sucking and wriggling the tip of his tongue into Harry’s arse. His cheeks flaming with embarrassment, Harry raised himself up on his elbows and craned his neck, but all he could see was Draco’s hair, pale in the moonlight, and the white outline of a grinning bee on the back of Draco’s Wimbourne Wasps t-shirt, and Draco’s bare arse desperately humping the bunched-up duvet in a way that told Harry he was close to coming . . .

_Draco!_

But this time Harry groaned rather than squeaked. Draco wasn’t doing this because Harry wanted him to, but because he did. Because it turned him on as much as Harry knew it would turn him on to be doing to Draco what Draco was doing to him. It was so dirty and so debauched and so amazingly right that Harry suddenly – and rather crazily – wondered if this meant he and Draco were married now, because surely two people couldn’t do what they were doing and not be bound together forever.

Harry let his head drop and spread his legs and relaxed completely as he began to mirror Draco’s own actions by thrusting his hips into the mattress. With each forward thrust he felt his cock slide against the sweat-soaked sheet and with each backward thrust, Draco’s tongue pressed deeper into his arse, and before he even knew he was about to come, he was coming, and Draco was crawling feverishly on top of him and frantically thrusting into the crack of Harry’s arse with a dozen breathless “Oh! Oh! Oh! Ohs!” Straining beneath him, Harry tried as hard as he could to arch his back in a way that would give Draco entrance to his body, but Draco was too far gone to even realise what Harry was trying to do, and after a few more thrusts and a couple of more “Ohs!” Draco’s cock was pulsing, and suddenly Harry’s arse was soaked and as slick as soap.

Draco collapsed on top of him, panting for breath.

_Holy shit,_ he said at last when he finally found himself capable of speech. _We almost fucked, Potter! I mean really and truly fucked!_

And then because they were boys and everything was new and scary and hilariously funny all at the same time, they laughed hysterically until Mrs. Weasley stomped on the floor for them to shut up . . .

Harry jolted out of the doze he’d fallen into, but it wasn’t someone stomping on the ceiling that had woken him, but someone stomping up the narrow stairs outside his door. He blinked and rolled on to his back, trying to remember where he was and cursing whoever it had been who’d yanked him so thoughtlessly from his memories of Draco. Now that he was no longer in the midst of them, the pain washed in to fill the hollow places, like waves amidst tidal pools. And for a second Harry was sure that he would drown.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Shaking his head in confusion, Ron stepped from the elevator.

“Did you find him all right?” Euan asked.

Ron frowned and scratched his chin distractedly for a moment.

“No, actually I didn’t. He wasn’t in the park where he said he would be.”

Euan’s mouth pressed into a thin, worried line.

“Do you think he’s already been arrested – maybe by another Auror department or something?”

Ron shook his head.

“No, I would have been informed, since it’s my responsibility to see that everyone accused by the Report Generators is apprehended.”

“Do you think that maybe, I don’t know . . . , that maybe he might have run away?”

Ron turned to glare at Euan.

“Harry has never run from anything in his life,” he said, but then added when he noticed Euan’s quizzical glance, “well, at least not from anything that didn’t involve getting over that stupid, stuck-up git.”

Euan was silent for a long moment.

“I’m not sure I would blame him,” he said quietly. “I mean after all, he faces a lifetime in Azkaban for something he didn’t do.”

Ron dragged his hands through his hair.

“Yeah, I know.”

They walked down the corridor to the Report Inspectors’ office, their heads down and their hands crammed deep into the pockets of their Auror robes. Two other inspectors besides Euan were also on duty that evening, but Ron had sent them out of the office on long and futile tasks, assuring them that he, himself, would take their places, and if they didn’t complete their assignments before their shifts ended, well, then it would be just fine with him if they went straight home.

“It was eerie when you left,” Euan said, as they entered the Inspectors’ office. “I’ve never been down here completely alone before.”

Ron sat down at a desk and pulled a blank sheet of parchment out of a drawer, barely repressing a shudder at Euan’s words.

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” he said. “You start thinking about how it’s just you . . . and _them_.”

“So, I take it you’ve never actually seen them, then?” Euan leaned over the Pensieve and peered into its depths.

“Of course not! No one has,” said Ron. “Well, a few people have, but it’s not something they’re free to discuss at dinner parties, or anything. I mean, what if one of those people is someone’s son or daughter or something? We’d have a right mess on our hands.”

“Well, obviously those three are someone’s sons or daughters. It’s not like Voldemort moulded them from clay or something,” Euan said as he straightened and walked over to his desk.

“I know that,” Ron snapped. “I just mean, what if someone was in a position to make a stink about their treatment? It’s just easier this way. Assign people names, and all of a sudden you give them histories and identities and rights and all kinds of things. It’s the same as it was with the executions. The public didn’t have access to names, only to numbers.”

“Which, of course, leaves one to wonder if all the people we executed deserved it,” said Euan thoughtfully. “I mean, come on, Ron. You and I both know there were people embedded as spies by the Order who were never accounted for.”

“You’ve spent too much time with Harry.”

“Harry may have been obsessed, but that doesn’t mean he was wrong. I know you didn’t like Malfoy, but do you really believe he defected to Voldemort’s side?”

“All I know is that he disappeared and left my best mate a walking zombie in a dream,” Ron snapped. “And if you knew Malfoy like I did, Euan, you wouldn’t find the thought of him dumping Harry for the opportunity to make a clean start somewhere else that unlikely. That’s Malfoy through-and-through, actually. Use the most powerful person in the room until somebody else walks in . . .”

“Oh, thank Merlin!” cried Euan suddenly, interrupting Ron. He leapt up and ran back over to the Pensieve. “Finally!”

“What it is?” asked Ron, rising from his chair so fast that it almost fell over.

“Report Generator Number One’s prediction is finally available,” replied Euan. “God, that took forever!”

“Well, what are you waiting for?” barked Ron. “Get writing!”

For nearly fifteen minutes, Euan alternated between dunking his head into the wash-tub sized Pensieve and withdrawing it to scribble frantically on a piece of parchment on his desk. Every now and then, he made sounds of exclamation and alarm, and Ron found himself biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from exploding with tension. At last, Euan threw his quill down and turned his chair to face Ron.

“All right, here’s the Report. It appears Harry will receive a letter by owl from an anonymous sender telling him Hermione Granger may have been kidnapped by a man . . . her boss, it appears . . .”

Ron started violently.

“What?!”

Euan looked up from the parchment he was holding, suddenly white-faced.

“Oh sweet Merlin,” he said. “That’s right. I’d forgotten you and Hermione had been engaged at one time.”

“Keep reading,” Ron said frantically. “What else does it say?”

“Uhm . . . hang on . . . you know how grabbled these Reports can be sometimes. . . Okay, so Harry will receive this letter and Apparate directly to Hermione’s flat with his wand drawn. And that’s it, really. The Report just ends with him knocking on her door. We’ll have to wait until the next Report is ready before we know more. But this is about as clear as it gets, Ron. There’s an obvious intent on Harry’s part . . .”

“Well, that may be true,” said Ron desperately. “But it’s hardly unjustified!”

Euan watched nervously as Ron jumped to his feet and prepared to Apparate.

“Where are you going?” he asked. “The next Report should be ready soon.”

“Just up to my office,” said Ron. “I have a pamphlet from that new do-gooder charity organisation that Hermione started working for a month ago. I heard from a mutual friend about it, and . . . well, I suppose I just like to keep track of what she’s up to . . .” His voice trailed off lamely.

Euan nodded.

“You think that pamphlet might tell you who this boss of hers might be?”

“That’s what I was thinking, yes,” said Ron. “I’ll just grab it and come right back.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind if I step out for a quick fag, then?” asked Euan.

“I thought you quit when you and Colin moved in together?”

“I did,” said Euan, pulling a pack of cigarettes from a desk drawer. “But if ever there was a time for a relapse, it’s now. Just one, though, I promise. I won’t be gone for long.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry pushed himself off the bed and staggered to the sink. The water smelled mossy, and he was sure that if he turned on a light, he’d discover it was brownish coloured. Holding his breath, he splashed his face and throat and then patted himself dry with his shirt. It was hardly a cold shower, but it still worked somewhat to lessen his arousal. As always, he would just have to ride it out. Wanking, after all, was not an option. He’d discovered that the hard way after indulging one time while reliving the night he and Draco had finally made love – each taking a turn topping so as, in Draco’s words, they could “stay the same.” It was the first time he’d had an orgasm since Draco’s disappearance, and he’d come so hard his foot had cramped. But after the last spasm had subsided, he’d been left defenceless and spent and terribly vulnerable to every remembered whisper and sigh and barely-suppressed glimmer of laughter in Draco’s November sky eyes. It had been not the first moment, but it had been the surest and clearest, in which Harry had glimpsed the future. The rest of his life. And it had been almost more than he could bear. When at last he’d been able to move again, to take a breath without thinking it would tear him apart, he’d vowed never again. So now, on those rare occasions when he wanked in the shower, he pictured nameless, generically muscled men he’d seen in porno magazines. Men who looked nothing at all like Draco. And when he came, he watched his semen wash down the drain with nothing but a sense of “good riddance.”

Harry sat down on the edge of the bed and stared out the window. Ned’s ID was on the bedside table, so he was Harry again. Exhausted, he found himself wondering whether living life as Ned Noodginton couldn’t help but be easier than living life as Harry Potter. After all, Ned Noodginton didn’t go to Hogwarts, and thus Ned Noodginton would have had no occasion to meet one, Draco Malfoy, and fall helplessly hopelessly in love . . .

What could Ned Noodginton know of love?

Lucky bastard.

Harry laughed ruefully, and the sound was overly loud in the three a.m. darkness. How had his life become so surreal so suddenly? How had all his carefully constructed defences been dismantled so quickly and ruthlessly by circumstances so completely beyond his control? It seemed too cruel to be coincidence, and he found himself wondering again whether this could possibly be a set-up. After all, Ron had told him that these Report Generators were former Death Eaters. Was it really so impossible that two of them had emerged enough from the spell they were under to formulate a plan to revenge their Lord’s death? Voldemort had been dead now for five years. What if the spell was linked to his power and was slowly eroding over time? What if these . . . things . . . were once again turning into people? People with agendas? People who wanted revenge?

Feeling suddenly cold, Harry shuddered and reached for his jumper. Hermione and her group were right. The system was fundamentally unjust. There seemed to be no means of verifying the Reports and no means of challenging them, either. The word of three anonymous Death Eaters had essentially become the law of the land! There were no trials. No evidence. No defence. No jury of peers or even a majority vote by the Wizengamot. It was merely three spell-damaged vegetables dreaming dreams of violence in a windowless room. It was merely the word of three people enslaved – even beyond the grave! – to the Darkest Wizard Britain had ever known. Not only was it a system based on faith, and not laws, like Hermione had said. It was faith without even a foundation of trust!

Harry swallowed back the wave of nausea that always accompanied a memory of Voldemort. It had been Voldemort, after all, who had taken away everything that had ever been good in his life. Why was it so surprising that he would continue to do so even now? All one had to do was look around, and the reminders of the ravages of the war were still everywhere. Empty shop fronts and burnt-out homes. The maimed, the dead, the missing. Sometimes it was more than Harry could bear to think about, and he wondered how other veterans of the war managed to live their lives of seeming normalcy after months and years of blood and fire and fear and death.

_When was the last time someone was murdered? When was the last time someone was beaten within an inch of his life? When was the last time someone was raped, or kidnapped, or spell-damaged beyond repair? Not since the war ended, that’s when! And do you want to know why? It’s because every single violent crime has been accurately predicted by the Report Generators . . ._

Harry started as Ron’s words came back to him, and suddenly it was as though Ron were present in the room and sitting beside him, whispering into his ear. And suddenly, Harry’s thoughts seemed to still and coalesce. He had been reminded of the war so forcibly over the past few hours that he’d almost forgotten how much had changed since then. How many things were different now. And hadn’t he seen living proof of this very fact when he’d gone to the christening of Dean and Katie’s daughter last month? Hadn’t he held this baby in his arms whose soft brown eyes would never have to watch a friend die or a parent weep inconsolably? Someday, in the not-too-distant future, Harry and everyone else who lived through the war would be laid to rest, and the people who remained would be those for whom life had always been peaceful. Peaceful and free from fear.

He groaned in frustration. He was exhausted and afraid and confused. In Hermione’s warmly lit flat, full of the scent of tea and take-away curry, and the hopeful faces of people whose minds were made up much more firmly than his would ever be, things had made sense. But now – alone in the dark with memories of Draco and the war tangling around his thoughts like skeins of ivy – nothing seemed clear. After all, what made Hermione right and Ron wrong? Hermione claimed to be looking out for allegedly innocent people in Azkaban, but Ron had four years of solid data on his side. After all, there really had been no violent crime in the wizarding community since the institution of the Pre-Curse Programme. And there was simply no way that could be attributed to a sudden change in human nature. People didn’t suddenly stop killing and raping and stealing and hurting one another for no reason. The crime stopped because the criminals had been apprehended before they could commit their crimes. The proof was in the results, and it was irrefutable.

Suddenly, all Harry wanted to do was to talk to Ron. Just talk. He hadn’t made up his mind yet about what he would do. All he knew is that he couldn’t make this big of a decision alone. Aside from a few relatively minor disagreements over the years, Ron had always been there for him. And as close as Harry was to Hermione, he also had to acknowledge that what she had done to him tonight – tricking him with a letter saying she was in danger, for Merlin’s sake! – was just not on. It smacked of manipulation, and if there was one thing he couldn’t abide, it was being manipulated. Despite his faults and his short-comings, that was something that Ron had never done to him. Never. Not once.

His mind made up, Harry gathered his few belongings and prepared to Apparate to the DMLE building. If there was one thing he could be sure of, he knew that despite Harry’s unexplained disappearance, Ron was still doing everything in his power to help him. And if there was one thing he felt like he needed right now, it was someone on his side, and his alone. Not someone who was also trying to push an agenda. No matter how righteous it seemed.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Ron stared at the pamphlet in his hand, reading the name over and over again, and wondering when it would finally sink in.

Ed Kappington. The Director for the Centre for Wizarding Rights was a man by the name of Ed Kappington.

So, the first Report was not implausible, after all. It had clearly shown that Harry would receive a letter stating that Hermione may be in danger from her boss. And Hermione’s boss was Ed Kappington. The pieces of the puzzle were settling into place . . .

But that didn’t change the fact that if Harry killed this Kappington fellow to save Hermione then it could be argued that the killing was justified. And it seemed to Ron that a justified murder was not something for which a man should be sentenced to life in Azkaban!

Suddenly, the way to save Harry . . . and with him, the integrity of the Pre-Curse Programme . . . was crystal clear. Ron didn’t have to destroy the Reports and thereby risk his job and a Ministry inquiry. He just needed a good barrister!

Not even bothering with the elevator, Ron Apparated to the Report Inspectors’ office.

“Euan!” he called. “I’ve got . . . Euan?”

Bugger. The git must still be outside having a smoke.

But before Ron could Apparate to the front steps and grab Euan by the scruff of his neck, the Report Generators’ Pensieve began to steam like a cauldron of boiling water. The second Report was ready . . .

There was no time to waste. The other Auror departments almost certainly knew about the predictions, and Harry was almost certain to be arrested. And once he was, who knew what would happen? The situation would be out of Ron’s hands.

Making up his mind, Ron drew a deep breath and plunged his face into the Pensieve. It had been two years since he’d last done Report Inspection work, and it took him several minutes to find his bearings amidst the swirling fog of images. The visions from the Report Generators were always jumbled and confused – less a coherent narrative and more a loosely-knit sequence of vivid snapshots, almost completely devoid of context. Often it took multiple viewings before an Inspector could make sense of what he saw, but unfortunately, Ron didn’t have time for multiple viewings.

At first, he was utterly disoriented. A plain-looking brown-haired wizard was stepping off the Knight Bus somewhere in a nondescript Muggle neighbourhood. He was clutching his ID card like a talisman, but otherwise he looked like any other regular bloke. Then the scene shifted, and Ron saw a flash of blue neon – a sign of some sort – advertising cigarettes. And then there was a repetitive sound. It took a while before Ron could even recognise it as the dripping of a tap. And then there was a figure in a dark, shabby, little room, and Ron was looking down on him as though he were floating just beneath the high ceiling . . . The man beneath him was lying on his side in the middle of a large bed, his knees nearly drawn up to his chest and his face buried in his hands. It was only after Ron saw that the man was weeping and that the name he whispered was “Draco,” that he realised he was seeing Harry. Although where Harry was – and why he was there – Ron couldn’t even begin to guess. The only thing Ron was sure of was that nothing in the vision indicated that Harry intended to kill Ed Kappington . . . or anyone else for that matter. And the next glimpse he had, of a large man in Hermione’s flat surrounded by concerned-looking Aurors, only confirmed that belief. Report Generator Number Two was obviously the odd-man-out this time. He or she hadn’t predicted a murder. Which meant . . . which could only mean . . . that it was the third Report Generator who had provided the majority vote. And it was going to be the third Report Generator who was going to determine if Harry was a murderer . . . or if the system had made a mistake.

And regardless which of these two possibilities prevailed, it was still going to rock Ron’s world to its foundations. There was no way around it.

* * * * *

“Abercrombie! I thought you were going to smoke one fag, not ten. Come on, already!”

Euan dropped his cigarette on the stone step and stubbed it out with the toe of his boot before turning slowly to face Ron.

“I said, come on!” Ron yelled, waving at him urgently. “The Second Report Generator’s prediction is ready. I’ve seen it!”

Euan cleared his throat.

“Uhm . . . I forgot my badge . . .”

“Don’t worry, we’ll use mine,” said Ron distractedly. “Come on!”

Euan trotted up the stairs and followed behind Ron as he ran to the lifts and began punching buttons.

“It’s rather odd, actually,” Ron said, half to himself and half to Euan. “Report Generator Number Two had the minority report this time. I mean, hadn’t we determined that if there is going to be a dissenting report, it’s always going to be Number Three? He’s the loose canon. Never Number Two . . .”

Ron knew he was rambling, but he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

With a ping, the elevator doors finally opened, and Ron and Euan stepped inside. But before Ron could punch the basement button, a blurred figure suddenly appeared at the glass doors and shouted his name . . .

“It’s Harry!” Ron exclaimed. “Euan, hold the elevator. I’ll be right back.”

Puffing (when had he got so out of shape?), Ron ran back to the main doors and pushed them open.

“Harry,” he panted. “Where did you go? I’ve been . . .”

“I’ll explain later. Look, I need to talk to you. It’s really important . . . ,” Harry said, his voice equally breathless. Wherever he had come from, he must have run all the way.

“Of course. Of course. Just come on in. There are no guards here this time of night.”

“Hold on one second,” said Harry, patting his coat pockets. “I’ve got to get something.”

Ron watched as Harry went down a couple of steps and stooped to pick up something he’d dropped. And then, all of a sudden, Ron was no longer looking at Harry, but at the plain-looking bloke he’d seen board the Knight Bus in the Predictive Pensieve . . .

“What the . . . ?”

“I’ll explain later,” said the man-who-was-also-Harry. “I’ll put it down when we get to your office, and then I’ll be myself again.”

Ron laughed, feeling suddenly almost giddy, and for a moment it was just like old times.

“It’s been awhile,” he said fondly, as they trotted to the open lift.

Harry glanced at him quizzically.

“I mean, since you’ve been yourself,” Ron clarified.

Harry-cum-Ned smiled sadly at the unintended irony in Ron’s words.

“Isn’t that the truth,” he said. “And don’t I know it.”

* * * * *

“So, this is it. The sanctum sanctorum of the Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes,” said Harry as they pushed open the glass doors to the Report Inspectors’ office. “It looks just like any other DMLE wing, if you ask me. Where are these mysterious Report Generators who want to send me to Azkaban?”

Ron gestured to a desk, and Harry took a seat.

“Beyond that wall,” he said, pointing. “From what I’ve heard, they basically live their whole lives in one room. They don’t need to sleep because their lives are basically one long dream already. All they do is sit in armchairs, eat, and use the toilet. I think the caretaker walks them around some, so their muscles don’t atrophy completely, but basically, that’s it.”

Euan stirred in his chair in the corner, and Ron and Harry turned to him.

“Isn’t . . . isn’t there any way at all to get into their . . . uhm . . .chamber?” Euan mumbled.

Harry sighed. He’d known it would be awkward seeing Euan again, but he hadn’t realised it would be this awkward. Euan hadn’t said “hello” – or even looked at him – since Harry had arrived. If the circumstances were anything but what they were, Harry would have taken him aside and tried to find out why he was still so obviously upset. After all, they’d only dated for a couple of months. It wasn’t like Harry had strung him along for years or something . . .

Ron frowned.

“Don’t you remember your training, Euan? There’s an emergency door on the other side of that bookcase there, and the secret phrase that reveals it is always some passage or another from Shakespeare. I don’t know who comes up with them,” he chuckled. “Some witch with a degree in Muggle Literature or something. Let’s see. I just got a memo with the new phrase this morning.”

Ron reached into a pocket in his Auror robes and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, which he tossed to Euan.

“Last month it was . . . hold on, let me see if I can remember it. ‘But as I travelled hither through the land, I find the people strangely fantasied; possessed with rumours and full of idle dreams. Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear . . .’”

Despite the closeness of the air around them, Harry shivered.

“Seems rather bleak for such a utopian endeavour,” he murmured.

Ron shrugged.

“The phrases always mention dreams. I suppose it’s someone’s way of making the time pass or being clever. Who knows?”

“‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep . . .’”

Harry and Ron both turned toward Euan.

“Abercrombie! Have you gone completely mental?” Ron shouted. “Did that cigarette suck all the oxygen from your brain or something? That’s the current secret phrase. Say it out loud in this room, and suddenly we’ll be looking at the faces of three catatonic Death Eaters! Merlin, Demeter and divine Diana! Are you out of your mind?!”

Euan clapped a hand over his mouth as his face turned a mortified shade of red. Ron stared at him for a long moment.

“Seriously, Euan,” he said. “If the stress is getting to you, I can send you home . . .”

“No,” Euan said quickly, and then cleared his throat again. “No, I’m fine. I just wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s clear enough,” said Ron. He frowned at Euan for another moment before turning to Harry.

“So, as I was telling you in the lift, Report Generator Number One predicts you will murder this Kappington fellow, and Report Generator Number Two predicts that you won’t. Although, why Number Two’s vision showed you in a Muggle boarding house somewhere . . . ?”

“Actually, I was in a Muggle boarding house somewhere,” said Harry. “But that’s another thing I’ll explain later. Have you seen the Third Report Generator’s prediction yet?”

“No, but it should be ready any minute now,” said Ron. “In the meantime, shall I put on the kettle . . .?”

“Actually,” interrupted Harry. “Before you do that, I need to tell you something, Ron. But I don’t want you going spare on me, all right? I just want you to listen to what I have to say and then tell me what you think. Can you do that for me?”

Ron frowned and folded his arms across his chest.

“I don’t know when you started thinking I was such an irrational nutter, but, yeah, I think I can hear you out . . .”

“That’s not want I meant,” Harry said, sighing. “It’s just that what I’m about to tell you involves Hermione, and I just know from experience that you don’t always think straight when it comes to her.”

“Well, I’ve already received a heads-up that she’s somehow involved,” said Ron, rather darkly. “There was something in the First Report Generator’s prediction about an anonymous letter and you thinking Hermione might be in danger . . .”

Harry drew in a sharp, startled breath.

“Holy shit!” he said in an awed whisper. “You saw that?”

Ron nodded.

“That is what I was trying to tell you earlier, when we were talking in your flat,” he said. “The Report Generators predict the future, Harry. And they predict it accurately.”

“I’m beginning to believe you,” Harry murmured, still sounding awed. “Which makes what I have to tell you all the more urgent.”

“Well, then tell me,” said Ron. “I promise not to go spare. At least not until we get this whole thing sorted. After that? Well, then all wagers are off.”

“Fair enough,” Harry said, smiling. “All right. Here’s the short version: Hermione and this Kappington fellow want to bring down the Pre-Curse Programme and the entire Department for the Eradication of Unforgiveables, Dark Spells and Deadly Hexes with it. They think it’s unjust, that it’s based on nothing but faith, and they think my case is the perfect opportunity to make the public listen to their side of the argument. And, frankly, given everything that’s happened to me in the last twelve hours, I’m not sure I don’t agree with them . . .”

As Harry was talking, the lines around Ron’s eyes and mouth grew steadily tenser until his face looked like it was carved in stone.

“I see,” he said, after Harry told him about the rally and the plan to stand him and Kappington side-by-side for all of the wizarding community to witness. “And what? You’re now thinking this is a bad idea? A good idea?”

“I don’t know what to think!” Harry cried. “That’s why I came to see you.”

Ron stood from his chair and began pacing the length of the office. It was several minutes before he spoke.

“I understand that you’re upset,” said Ron, but when Harry gave a snort of ruefully incredulous laughter, he held up his hand. “But you have to realise that this is bigger than just one person – even if that person is Harry Potter . . .”

Harry’s face must have gone positively white with rage because suddenly Ron’s tone turned conciliatory.

“I don’t mean it like that, mate,” he said. “I just mean that for the first time in history, a society – our society – has managed to completely eliminate the threat of violence and crime. Our children can grow up without fear, Harry. Our pensioners don’t have to be afraid of being mugged in Diagon Alley. A witch who leaves her abusive husband won’t have to wonder if he’s waiting, wand in hand, to _Avada Kedavra_ her when she walks into her flat one night. It’s a gift, Harry! A fucking gift! And, yes, we have You-Know-Who to thank for it, but that doesn’t change what it is – and what we can do with it!”

Ron came over to stand in front of Harry and placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders.

“Listen, mate. I’m willing to wager the Third Report Generator will predict that you’re not going to kill this Kappington fellow. Which means that somehow, someway, something went wrong. To my knowledge, no one has ever been ordered arrested before on only one out of three reports. So, obviously something is fucked up.”

Harry shifted uncomfortably, and Ron dropped his hands.

“But that’s just it,” Harry said, his voice level and deliberate. “The system clearly isn’t infallible. What if Hermione is right, and innocent people are being sent to Azkaban?”

“Look,” said Ron emphatically. “I’m not saying that’s impossible because clearly your case indicates as much. But what’s worse? Sending one innocent man to prison, or letting a guilty man go free and condemning an innocent victim to death. Huh? Tell me! Because that’s the choice we’re left with, Harry. I mean . . . I mean, what if that innocent victim were my Mum . . . or . . . or Lavender . . . or even Hermione? What if that innocent victim were Draco, Harry? How would you feel . . . ?”

But Ron had crossed the invisible line being legitimate persuasion and emotional terrorism, and Harry leapt from his seat. Ron stepped back instinctively.

“Do . . . do you even realise that’s the first time you’ve ever said Draco’s name, Ron?” Harry cried, his voice quavering with scarcely suppressed emotion. “Do . . . how? . . . How can you . . .? I . . .”

It was only when he looked back on it later, that Harry could appreciate the fortuitousness of what happened next. Because if he had gathered his thoughts sufficiently to make a coherent response, it was likely he would have said things that could not be unsaid. But luckily, for both him and Ron, the Predictive Pensieve began to steam, and Ron’s attention was instantly diverted.

“It’s ready!” Ron cried. “The third prediction. Euan, come here . . . no wait, I’ll do it. Harry . . .?”

But Harry was literally still shaking.

“I . . . I’m sorry, Ron,” he said through clenched teeth. “I think I need a minute. Or some air. Or something . . .”

“Euan!” Ron barked. “Show Harry where the gents’ is. I’m going to take a look at the prediction.”

And before either Harry or Euan could respond, Ron had already plunged his head into the Pensieve.

Harry and Euan found themselves staring at each other from across the room. Until this second, Harry had actually forgotten Euan was still present.

“Er . . . , actually, I’m all right, Euan,” he said. “I saw the gents on our way in. You don’t need to come with me, or anything. I mean, I’ll be fine. It’s just . . . er . . . well, yeah. I’ll be back in a minute.”

And before anything else could go horribly wrong, Harry rose for his chair and fled the room.

* * * * *

The Third Report Generator’s predictions were always the hardest to make sense of, and when he was a Report Inspector, Ron had rarely even bothered to pay them much attention. After all, by the time the third Report was ready, the previous two had usually predicted the crime. So, the Third Report Generator’s input was more or less superfluous. Which was a good thing. Because out of the three of them, his (for some reason Ron was virtually sure he was male) were always the most difficult to decipher.

And this prediction was even worse than usual. If everything didn’t depend on it so precariously, Ron would have simply thrown up his hands and given up in frustration.

At first all he could see was a room.

It was large and lit like an institution. Harsh, unforgiving and unnatural light that cast no shadow yet still managed to conceal as much as it remorselessly revealed. There were no windows, and to Ron’s confusion – and horror – no doors. Just bare concrete. A large round wooden table and three large wooden chairs. And then Ron blinked because suddenly the chairs were no longer empty. Instead they seemed to hold shadows. Grey, hunched-over shadows. But how could there be shadows when the light came from every angle? No, those couldn’t be shadows Ron was seeing. They had to be . . . they could only be . . .

People.

It was all Ron could do not to push himself up and away from the Pensieve. Because suddenly he knew what he was seeing. But how? And why? After all, this vision was supposed to be of Harry, not of the Report Generators themselves. But before Ron could make sense of any of it, a door suddenly materialised in the wall, and a man rushed into the room. A man in Auror robes. A man who looked exactly like . . .

Euan!

Ron gasped out loud as Euan looked quickly from one side to another and then drew his wand and Stupified a witch in white robes who rose, startled, from a desk in the far corner. Their caretaker, Ron thought dimly, although the realisation scarcely had time to register before Euan was turning his wand on one of the three hunched figures. In the violent flash of green that followed, both the figure and its chair were thrown backward, and the force of the curse blew the deep cowled hoods from the other two figures’ heads. Ron had only a fleeting glimpse of dark hair and unseeing dark eyes, before the second figure was thrown backward by a second violent flash of green . . .

Ron half expected the vision to flicker and go black like a malfunctioning Muggle tellie, but it didn’t. Which could only mean that Report Generator Number Three was still alive. The only one left that was still alive . . .

But maddeningly, the vision had shifted, and Ron was no longer looking through his own eyes, but through somebody else’s. Somebody who squinted and blinked in the cruel light as though he were being wakened suddenly from a dream. And through the confusion and terror that suddenly seized Ron’s heart, he felt a stab of blinding joy. Like a needle made of lightning, it pierced him, and scattered the fragments of his dreams into splinters and shards . . . because . . . because he’d seen . . .

Harry!

Ron had never seen Harry look like he did now. His expression wild. His face whiter than white. His eyes . . . there were no words to describe Harry’s eyes! Greener than the ocean. Greener than a hilltop in May. Greener than the _Avada Kedavra_ that tore from his wand and caught Euan in the chest, propelling him backwards and breaking his body against the wall like so much kindling. And then Harry was running headlong towards where he sat, stumbling over a body and the remains of a shattered chair. And then Harry was on his knees. Tears welling in those terrifying beautiful eyes. And Harry’s hands were cupping his face, and Harry was kissing him – his lips his eyes his nose his jaw . . . and Harry was saying one word. One word. Over and over and over.

Draco!

And suddenly Harry’s arms were around him, and he was trying to embrace Harry back, but it was all too much, too soon, and then there was a cry, of “Wait! Harry, stop!”and Ron looked up to see himself, arm outstretched, rushing through the door, as if he could still stop what had happened, as if there was still time . . .

Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, as though in the back of his mind, Ron heard a sound. A crack and a crash and a thud and a woman’s scream. And when at last, he realised the sound had come from the room behind him and not from the Pensieve, Ron pushed back violently and fell on to the floor, just in time to see Harry rush through the doors of the Report Inspectors’ Office, wand drawn, and leap over him where he lay, still too stunned to move.

And then from a doorway Ron had never seen before came a flash of brilliant green.

The Report Generators had been right.

Harry Potter was a murderer.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Of all the things Harry had imagined Draco might say when he first awoke, “so, this is what it feels like to be dead,” was not among them.

Startled, Harry turned from the hamper of bed linens he’d been folding, his hands stilled in the middle of their task. But Draco’s eyes were as flat as his voice, and Harry had to turn away and compose himself before he could trust himself to answer.

“Why do you say that?” he asked, his back to the sterile hospital bed. Through the window, the sun shone weakly onto the bowed head of a man in a wheelchair. As Harry watched, the man held up his hand to shield his eyes and gazed down at the sidewalk below. Since he’d come to work at St. Mungo’s, Harry had noticed the man did the same thing every day, at exactly the same time, as though he were expecting a visitor. But no one had ever come. Not once in the whole month that Harry had been here.

Draco didn’t answer his question. Instead he asked, “what’s he waiting for?”

Harry turned again to face him, expecting an impish glimmer in those flat, grey eyes, but there was nothing. Not even a question.

“I don’t know,” Harry replied. “I’ve never asked him.”

Draco sighed and turned his head to look straight up at the ceiling.

“Maybe he’s waiting for someone he loves to die,” he said.

Harry frowned.

“Why would he want that?”

Draco turned his head again and stared at the man for a long time, and Harry found himself doing the same. After a minute or two, the man and the window seemed to merge into one dimension until Harry would have sworn they were one and the same. The sun shone around him like a halo.

“To keep him company,” Draco said at last as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. Harry turned to look at him, and Draco closed his eyes again and whispered quietly, so quietly that Harry almost didn’t hear.

“It sucks to be dead,” he said. “Almost as much as it sucked to be alive.”

* * * * *

The second time Draco awoke, about a week later, the first thing he said was, “you, again,” and once more, Harry had to turn away and compose himself.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

Draco was silent, and Harry started ironing the hospital robes the girl from the laundry room had delivered earlier that morning.

“What’s your name?” he asked after several minutes.

Harry took a deep breath.

“Ned,” he said. “Ned Noodginton.”

Draco made a sound that could almost have been a snort of laughter if it hadn’t sounded so exhausted. So defeated.

“My condolences,” he murmured and fell back asleep.

* * * * *

The third time Draco awoke, he was crying, and Harry had to pinch the soft skin on the insides of his elbows to keep himself from pulling Draco into his arms and rocking him like a baby. Instead, he drew a chair over to Draco’s bedside and sat down.

“When . . . does it . . . stop?” Draco asked, his voice hitching on the words.

“When does what stop?” Harry asked.

“The dreaming,” Draco whispered.

Harry reached out and brushed Draco’s fringe out of his red-rimmed eyes.

“What is it that you dream about?” he asked.

Draco swallowed, but he didn’t move away from Harry’s touch.

“When I was alive,” he said. “I dreamt of death. But now that I’m dead, I dream of being alive.”

Harry ducked his head before Draco could see the tears welling in his own eyes.

“You’re not dead,” he said gently.

Draco was silent for so long that Harry thought he had fallen asleep again when at last he spoke.

“I think my name was Draco Malfoy.”

Harry inhaled sharply.

“It still is,” he said.

“And I think . . . I think I was not a bad person when I died. I can’t see how I could have been . . .”

He gazed at Harry appealingly as if Harry held some kind of key or was capable of bestowing some kind of favour.

“I . . . I can’t remember what I did before I died, but I remember that . . . that someone good loved me once.”

Harry could only nod.

“Will you tell them that?” Draco asked, his eyes pleading with Harry’s. “When it comes time for them to decide? I don’t remember much, but I remember that his name was Harry, and I remember that he loved me . . .”

“No one’s going to be deciding anything,” Harry said, trying to sound soothing even though his heart was breaking. “The decision has already been made. You’ve been exonerated, Draco. The only thing that anyone’s deciding now is how much you’re owed in compensation after all that was unjustly done to you.”

Draco frowned, obviously confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“The government,” said Harry. “The Ministry . . .”

Draco groaned.

“So, even the sodding afterlife is run like a bureaucracy!”

Harry shook his head.

“I keep trying to tell you. You’re not dead.”

Draco just blinked at him, and Harry felt like he was watching the meaning of his words finally take root in the sandy soil of Draco spell-damaged mind.

“Then . . . then, where am I?” he asked.

“You’re in the hospital. St. Mungo’s.”

Draco stared at him.

“You’ve basically been in a kind of coma for seven years.”

Draco continued to stare at him.

“You were discovered by Voldemort on your final undercover assignment and essentially held captive – first by Voldemort and then by the Ministry. You and two others, actually. But that’s all over now. You’re free, and you’ve been exonerated of all suspicion . . .”

“Harry,” Draco murmured, and Harry started, wondering if the impossible had happened, and Draco had finally seen through his disguise.

“It was Harry who found me.”

Harry sighed and nodded, unsure whether to feel crushed that Draco hadn’t recognised him or relieved. The moment had passed, and he was Ned Noodginton once again.

Draco smiled.

“He promised he would,” he said, his voice happy and sleepy. “And he promised that when he did . . .”

“. . . that he would tell the world that he loved Draco Malfoy and fuck them if they couldn’t handle it.”

Draco nodded, his eyes closed.

“How do you know that?”

“Because it was front page news in The Prophet.”

Draco’s eyes flew open again, although they remained somewhat blurred and unfocused. The Healers had said it would be like this for months, if not years – that Draco would be trapped between dreaming and waking to some degree, probably for the rest of his life.

“Can I see?” he murmured.

“What? The paper?”

Draco nodded, fighting to keep his eyes open.

Harry reached for the drawer in his bedside table.

“There are things you don’t know yet,” he said nervously, handing Draco a folded copy of The Prophet.

Draco frowned.

“What do you mean?” he asked, his voice suddenly fierce despite his obvious fatigue. “What happened to Harry?”

Harry swallowed and took a deep breath.

“He’s a fugitive accused of murder,” he said. “And when the Aurors find him, and you’re well enough to testify, the Ministry plans to call you as a witness against him. And not just a witness. Their star witness.”

* * * * * * * * * * * *

“Did you see today’s Prophet?”

Ron looked up from his desk and saw Euan Abercrombie standing at his office door.

“You’ve got to be joking,” he growled. “I wouldn’t wipe my arse with that rag, let alone ruin my breakfast by reading it.”

Without waiting for an invitation, Euan came in and sat down in the chair facing Ron’s desk.

“Harry’s finally turned himself in,” he said.

Ron started, spilling coffee down the front of his robes.

“He’s what?!”

“Turned himself in,” repeated Euan.

“Bloody hell!” cried Ron. “Why? We were never going to find him. I mean, here he’s been Noodginton for three months, and the Aurors haven’t been able to figure it out. Why the hell didn’t he just stay where he was and let me and you and Hermione sort this whole bloody thing out? He could have hired himself out as Malfoy’s private nurse when they released Malfoy from St. Mungo’s. He didn’t have to reveal himself, and once Malfoy was out of St. Mungo’s and living at home, Harry could have told Malfoy he was Noodginton . . . ,”

Ron rose from his desk and began pacing.

“We were so close in our negotiations with the New Wizengamot. They’d nearly agreed to drop the charge from murder to manslaughter, and with my testimony and yours, there was no way they would have sent him to Azkaban . . .”

“Ron,” Euan interrupted. “You’re forgetting one very important fact. You and I didn’t actually see what happened in that room. I mean, I was lying unconscious behind a shrub, and you . . . ”

“Dammit, Euan,” said Ron, “I did see what happened. It saw it in the Predictive Pensieve, remember?!”

Ron knew, of course, that Euan was not the enemy, but nonetheless, his exasperation still threatening to boil and spill over. He’d been arguing the same thing over and over again since that night, and he was fucking sick of it. Why couldn’t people just see the truth? After all, it was right there in front of them, staring them in the face? Yes, Harry had killed a man, but he had done so in defence of another. For years, people had been willing to imprison a man for life on nothing but a vision in a Pensieve, but Merlin forbid they allow the same vision to be used to exonerate him . . .

Euan sighed and shook his head wearily.

“Have you even listened to anything the prosecutor has been saying, Ron?” he asked gently.

Ron stopped pacing and glared at him.

“I may not have made top marks in my year,” he said pointedly. “But I’m not a moron. I know what the government is saying about Malfoy not being an actual, technical person at the time Kappington was killed, and thus saving his life couldn’t be justification for taking another’s, but that’s complete shite! I mean, they plan to put Malfoy on the stand, for Merlin’s sake! How do they plan to simultaneously make him human and inhuman for the sake of the same case?!”

“But, Ron,” said Euan quietly. “You’re forgetting . . .”

“What?” cried Ron. “What am I forgetting?”

“You’re forgetting all those people in Azkaban who never received trials. Who never got to even commit their crimes, let alone argue that they might have been justified. The Ministry isn’t going to recognise a defence to murder, because how can they do so and still justify four years of imprisoning people without trials? What you’re advocating would call into question everything the Report Generators . . . and Draco . . . predicted. You’d be calling into question countless convictions and an entire system. Do you really think the Ministry would permit that, Ron? Just for one man, . . . even if he is Harry Potter?”

Ron froze at the sound of his own words echoing back to him, and suddenly the stress – and guilt – of three months seemed on the verge of consuming him. Numbly, he dragged himself back to his chair and collapsed into it.

He stared down at his official Auror robes. At his badge. At his embroidered Ministry seal. At his gold embossed paperweight with the Ministry’s crest, which the Commissioner, himself, had given him on the occasion of his promotion.

“How did it happen?” he murmured wonderingly, although who, exactly, he was addressing, he could not say. He looked up at Euan, his expression suddenly lost and boyish and confused.

“How did it happen?” he repeated. “How did something that was so good go so bad?”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

It was a situation Harry remembered all too clearly.

A cavernous room. A chair with chains. A sense that many of the people whose faces peered curiously back at him had already made up their minds before they could be bothered to hear the evidence.

For two weeks he had come here. For two weeks, he’d been wakened in his cell before the sun rose and Portkeyed straight into this room. This chair. And yet nothing had changed. Despite Hermione’s assurances and Ron’s relentless lobbying, the charges had not been dropped, or even lessened. He was still here. Still accused, still bound, still unable to go to Draco’s side. And this was despite the fact that Hermione had already disclosed Kappington’s plan to discredit the Pre-Curse Programme. And despite the fact that only yesterday, she’d testified to how Kappington had installed a tracking spell in the ID they’d given Harry, and how once he’d realised that Harry’s resolve was faltering, he’d decided to take the situation into his own hands by “disposing of” the Report Generators himself. Despite the fact that Euan had already testified about Kappington assaulting him and knocking him unconscious when he’d stepped out for a smoke. Despite the fact that a dozen Aurors had witnessed the body they believed to be Euan Abercrombie turn into that of Ed Kappington. And despite the fact that a world-famous Forensic Potions Master had testified to the posthumous effects of Polyjuice . . . .

Harry sighed. The law had let him down. Reason and justice and the certitude of friends had let him down.

The only thing that made any of it bearable was the fact that this morning Draco was here with him, and he was looking at Harry, and it was not at all how he had looked at Ned Noodginton.

Harry had already been retrieved from his cell on the last day of his trial and chained to the chair before the prosecutors had sent for their star witness. For Draco. And Harry watched him enter the room, his eyes searching for Harry’s until he found them. And they were furious and awake and alive and anything but flat.

Harry felt himself release a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding. Draco was all right. For the first time, Harry admitted to himself that he hadn’t been sure that Draco would be strong enough – physically or mentally. It had been so long since he’d seen that spark, that unwavering conviction, that Draco was capable of.

How had he lived without that for all those years, Harry found himself wondering. Perhaps what he’d thought was living had only been a long and lonely dream. A dream that was over now. Regardless of the verdict.

“Mr. Malfoy,” said the Minister, his voice oily and obsequious. “We appreciate your willingness to testify today. Please make yourself comfortable and do not hesitate to let my assistant know if you should require anything.”

Ironic, Harry thought, that they should care about Draco’s comfort now. But if Draco had even heard the Minister, he did not show it. Instead, he kept his eyes on Harry’s as he walked carefully to the witness stand, and, dizzily, Harry found himself recalling a thousand moments just like this one. A thousand times he’d glanced up from a textbook and found Draco watching him. A thousand times their eyes had locked high above a Quidditch pitch. A thousand times a room and everyone in it had melted away, as inconsequential as a dream, and left them alone, wands drawn. A thousand times they’d shared a joke without saying a word, leaving the other Order members blinking and mystified. A thousand times they’d felt something for the first time, the sensation of mouths on skin, of bodies tangled together in rumpled summer sheets, and their eyes had flown open, breath held, searching the other’s gaze for what each knew the other felt. And could not help but feel . . .

_Please. I want . . . I want us to stay the same._

Suddenly, Harry recalled another moment. An evening in early May beneath a chestnut tree. It had been a cold, wet spring, and the frost had left the ground reluctantly. Harry could remember the scent of it still clinging to the edges of things, and even at the time he’d thought that this - this - is what new and impossible love must smell like. A slow thaw after a long winter. He’d watched as Draco tucked his hair behind his ear, his face averted as he spoke.

. . . _and don’t you dare say I’ve gone mental, Potter, because, really, it’s not as though you can talk_ . . .

What had Draco been saying? Something about not wanting to be friends because what he wanted was so much more than friendship, and it wasn’t like he, Potter, needed any more groupies anyhow. Harry had listened with only half of his mind, letting the other half focus on Draco’s face and the way Draco’s hands alternated between nervously tugging that lock of hair and ripping up clumps of new grass and wet earth and throwing them just outside the ring of shadow that encircled them.

_Why would I think you’re mental?_ Harry asked bemused. _A prat? Well, maybe . . ._

_Because,_ Draco had replied. _I told you. I dreamed this . . ._ He paused to gesture with his hand at the hill on which they sat, at the tiny unfurling leaves on the chestnut’s branches, at the whole night descending around them. _I saw it. And it was just like this._

He turned to Harry, his face full of awe.

_It was meant to be,_ he whispered. _Don’t you see? You and I were meant to be._

Harry had been in no mood to argue. After all, he’d been waiting for months for Draco to get over himself and give in to what he was so obviously feeling. But even as he’d let Draco pull him into that first perfect fumbling amazing awkward kiss, he’d thought, well, of course you saw it, silly! You were the one who brought me here, who made this happen, who chose this very moment to say these words. But he’d never said it, and Draco went on believing – as it seemed he needed to – that their relationship had been preordained. Had materialised out of the dream of some distant, omniscient and benevolent star. . .

“I think,” Draco had told Ned Noodginton the night before Harry Potter turned himself in, “that I dreamed Harry back to me. And the only way I knew how was to make him a murderer.”

Draco had swallowed hard and turned away, while Harry had frowned but said nothing. Just as he’d said nothing that evening beneath the chestnut tree.

“If he’s guilty,” Draco had continued, furrowing his brow and enumerating each point on a finger as though he were working out a logic problem. Some strange Arithmancy of the soul. “ . . . then so am I. If he’s still alive, then I cannot possibly be dead. If I’ve been asleep, then everything he did was nothing but a dream. And if he could save me, then I can save him.”

Draco’s words still turning in his head, Harry felt himself smile, and just like Harry knew he would, Draco smiled back.


End file.
